


My Fingers Ran With Blood

by Marquise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Reconstruction era, Southern Gothic, United States history AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3324950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reconstruction era AU. The Starks are all but extinct, with Sansa and Rickon all that remains of the line. They survive on their crumbling plantation, surrounded by debts and shadows. In an effort to save face and regain some status, Sansa finds herself seeking help from the carpetbagger Petyr Baelish. But his price is, perhaps, greater than she suspected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A fine dust had settled over everything. No matter how hard their over-worked servants scrubbed and polished every surface it always returned, floating in from every open window, every crack in the plaster, creating an unmistakable air of stillness and neglect.

It used to bother Sansa, this choking coat that had somehow managed to drape itself across every inch of her life. Nowadays, picking a brush from a vanity, she merely noted the patterns her fingers made across the polished wood. They would vanish soon enough, covered over by the next morning.

Nothing seemed to change here. Curious, considering the very fabric of her life had been torn to pieces and now stood ready to be reshaped, remade.

Still though, despite it all, a lady must keep up with the latest fashions. A lady must be presentable. And despite everything that had been stripped away she remained a _lady_. With a careful hand she began the long process of smoothing out her auburn hair, preparing it for the task of being set, enjoying the way it shown even in her poor surroundings. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she would be able to catch one of the few servants and convince them to lend a hand. The plantation staff had dwindled to a skeletal crew over the years, until their numbers were almost as bad as the Starks themselves. First the slaves had left in droves, only a few loyal retainers remaining. And then they too had seen the promise of a better life and took off, leaving dust and emptiness behind. And now Sansa and her brother relied only on the kindness of a few strangers from the area, stragglers with nowhere else to go—the elderly, the sick, the desperate. 

The day was humid. The buzz of insects was constant, the smell of the grounds fetid, overdone. As she went about the business of preparing herself she tried to imagine it as it was in her childhood. Her images were soft things, fuzzy around the edges, as if the sharpness of the war had damaged her memory itself. Everything seemed cracked and distorted, her father’s face broken—but she had not seen him die, had not seen him tore asunder on the battlefield and this _should_ not be how she pictured him...

“Are you really going?” The half-curious sneer brought her out of her dreams. Rickon leaned against the doorframe, one hand in his pocket, observing her in the weak sunlight. His face was smeared with something—he never quite seemed clean these days.

Sansa put on a smile, the kind of gentle grin that promised everything was going to be alright. She wondered if he was now old enough to see through it. “It feels good enough to have my widow’s weeds off. I would like to go about.” She had mourned Harrold for long enough. Their brief marriage had been full of promise for Winterfell (the ironic name that some ancestor had bestowed upon their too-large estate) but the same fever that had gradually taken the rest had taken him. For years she had lived in mourning, the mirrors all covered, the paint that had been promised a touch-up peeling all around.

They were all in the ground now, buried out among the willows, and Sansa and Rickon lingered here, among the ashes.

He half-turned in the doorway, stared at the ornate ceiling with its not-so-hidden cobwebs. “You know what they say about him, don’t you?”

She dabbed some of her mother’s perfume on each wrist, as carefully as if it was gold. The bottle mostly sat and gathered dust, only being opened on those occasions Sansa wished to get a whiff of her scent. But she was desperate now, and she needed to do whatever she suspected it would take. “He was our mother’s friend.”

“He’s vile.”

She caught his eyes in the mirror, blue on blue. She couldn’t argue that point. Petyr Baelish was not a man of a good reputation. She did not remember much of what her mother said of him, only that he was a poor friend from Boston, a remnant of her life before moving south for marriage. And now he was here, part of a wave of Northern men who plucked and stole and feasted on the rotting corpse that was their lives.

But he had money.

And he held possibility. Sansa’s eyes swept over the room, the unchanged furnishings, the drapes heavy with dust. The perfume on her wrists filled her senses, pushing away the musty odor that hung over their lives.

“I’m only meeting him for luncheon. It makes sense that he would wish to see the children of his old friend.” A justification more to herself than him. Rickon knew, of course. With a shrug of his shoulders he was out the door, feet heavy on the floorboards. She suspected she would not see him again for quite some time—he had the habit of sulking off into the woods whenever he was in a mood. These days he seemed more at ease among the moss and the trees, away from all the crumbling artifice that she was trying, with all her might, to hold together. 

 _Harrold should be here_ , _fixing this_ , she thought, not for the first time. He had arrived with less money and more bastards than she anticipated, and died with debt—gambling, whores, bad investments. He had left a hole in her heart greater than any love he had given her.

She had sold herself to him for the promise of something more, a foundation upon which she could rebuild her family. Was meeting this man Baelish really any worse? She was well practiced at the art of weakness, and there was no shame left in her these days--that was a luxury she could ill-afford. Perhaps he would lend her his hand, his wallet. Perhaps she would do her line proud.

She pinched her cheeks, hard. The pain was sharp and fine.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Something about his appearance just did not _fit_.

That was the feeling that overwhelmed her when she was finally introduced to Petyr Baelish, when he had taken her gloved hand with one heavy with rings and leaned in to deliver a perfumed kiss to its back. Sansa had been expecting a Northern gentleman more in the vein of her mother’s relatives—warm, respectable men, always dressed in grey flannel, sweltering in the Louisiana heat. And though she was not expecting it she was not unaccustomed to dandies (her Harrold had possessed a streak of that himself, with his perfectly waxed mustache and polished boots). However there was something _off_ about him that went beyond his gaudy dress. He seemed lightly pressed onto his surroundings, not fully fused to their world, merely an observer.

Sansa swallowed any and all of these thoughts with ladylike grace. _This will not be so bad_.

“You look exactly as I imagined you,” he told her as they received their food, his eyes intent. He had the most curious gaze—there was warmth in his smile but it only lingered around the edges of his eyes. They were clear, blue and grey, and they were entirely focused on her every move. 

The café was nearly deserted. It had a faded grandeur about it and Sansa could feel a mournful sense of pride in every threadbare carpet, as well as a kind of embarrassment for having to meet at such a place. Surely he regarded such an establishment with nothing more than amusement and pity? It didn’t show, but the longer she spent in his company the more she suspected that was because he kept such emotions carefully packed down. She could not escape the notion that every sentiment he presented her with was one he carefully deliberated over.

She couldn’t exactly find fault in that notion—it was one she had embraced herself, albeit unintentionally. The press of death had become suffocating, and after a while Sansa could feel herself simply shutting down, drying up, swallowing it all before it destroyed her. When she buried Harrold she was grateful that the veil hid her lack of tears, though she could tell from Rickon’s glare that he knew.

“You’re very kind to say so, sir.” He was not the first. Catelyn Stark’s beauty was renown, spoken of in hushed tones even at the end. When she was laid in state in the front room, her cheeks sunken, all that Sansa heard was how lovely and delicate she looked. Her mother had been an extraordinary woman, one she had strived to emulate. 

“I am sorry to hear of her loss, and sorrier still I could not see her before she passed.” He sounded almost sincere in his grief, but she suspected if he had nothing to gain down South he never would have come at all.

Again, who was she to judge him? The possibility of gain was the whole reason she was sitting here, sipping at her tea and picking at her food. 

“She spoke often of you. You were a great friend of hers.” It was not a total lie, though Sansa suspected her mother did not speak of him as often as Petyr would have liked. It was no matter. He smiled at the words and seemed to take them to heart and she felt her shoulders relax just a little bit. Her lips coiled into a dainty grin, one she tried to infuse with all of her charm.

“I’m very glad to hear she had not forgotten me in this unbearable heat.” He took a sip of his drink— bourbon, the finest in the establishment—and leaned back to examine her once more. She could feel herself blush but allowed him to look his fill, sitting straight as a rod in her chair. She thought of Winterfell restored. She tried to ignore the queer sense of curious dread creeping through her as he watched her, as he graced her with false smiles.

“And I am glad to have you meet with me. I am just coming out of my widow’s weeds, as I’m sure you know.” Something made her bite her lip after spilling those words, as if she had just laid herself bare. He knew of course, she had said as much in her letters to him, and yet to say that, to actually reveal something at this table appeared to her almost a mistake. The air all around them seemed hot and suffocating—she wondered if she could not reach for her fan without displaying any more weakness.

Petyr straightened up in his chair, as if coiling himself to act, though all that came out was a slight sympathetic sound. “I’m dreadfully sorry to hear about your poor husband. About your family.” 

“It’s been a terrible blow.”

“And to such a beautiful woman.” His eyes flickered. It was not an emotion she could place but it was like a breath of life, a crack.

The air was still, the dust dancing in the slanted rays of sunlight. Everything around seemed faded, choked of life and left to rot in the heat. Everything, that is, beyond their table. There was clearly life enough in him—there was _something_ coiled underneath the silks and perfumes and pleasantries. 

It made her press on. 

“After having traveled all this way, I would expect you would like to pay your respects at her grave—is that right, Mr. Baelish?” The thought of him arriving at Winterfell in all its faded grandeur made her hesitant but she knew it was necessary. His love for her mother was obvious, and she expected to gather support simply from that, but by not allowing him to take it all in she could risk offense. And, as much as it pained her to say, the future of the estate, of the legacy seemed to now rest in his generous pockets. 

“I would be honored.” His voice was softer then, a touch of feeling seeping through. He didn’t snuff that out as quickly. He was either unable to or eager to let her see.

A most curious man indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> The rating reflects how I think this will go in later chapters. Also, this is my first attempt as a multi-chapter fic!


End file.
